Ambitious Decentralized Projects That Aim to Create a Better Internet

The Internet is an interesting place. It started out as a network intended for file-sharing and has turned into a storehouse of information. It is a dynamic and profit making industry, and generates enormous revenue. While providing an open platform for free expression, it gives everyone a chance to reach out to thousands of people, at an extremely low cost. This makes the Internet the most powerful media of this age. The Internet is governed by a set of standards, that bind it and prevent it from falling apart. Furthermore, there are services that have an expertise in certain domains (Google in search, Facebook in social networking). These direct and indirect controls limit the capabilities of the Internet and can be a cause of discontent at times. There are a lot of variables in an ideal Internet, but when we rely on these services solely, most of those variables are locked. Once a user gets on the Internet and puts his personal data, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Both Facebook and Google use out browsing behavior and personal data to serve personalized ads, and it is extremely hard to make oneself tracking-free. Governments ask for private user data all the time and demand user-generated content to be censored.

This, has brought the need for services that are not under the control of a central authority. Currently, there are three such ongoing projects, and if they succeed, they have a chance of changing the Internet and the world.